CREJ - Retail Properties Quarterly - May 2016
As a manager or owner of a retail property, one must be as prepared as possible for an unpredicted event – from the most extreme cases of an active shooter or terrorist attack to weather calamities and crowd control. Nick LeMasters, general manager of Cherry Creek Shopping Center, told attendees at the April Rocky Mountain Shopping Center Association lunch how his mall prepares for the unexpected, chiefly with a robust onsite simulation training event supplemented with monthly meetings and trainings. These large training sessions are done in partnerships with local public safety authorities and mall merchants and are conducted once a year at 6 a.m. on a Sunday. This year’s scenario was an active shooter on the premises. The team debriefs after to determine areas of vulnerability as well as identify areas of control. LeMasters laid out several important components when preparing for the unexpected. He told the audience that they would be naïve to think something won’t happen, and even more naïve to think they don’t have any responsibility if it does. Most importantly, he wants his staff to know they were as prepared as they possibly could be. “We want to say we’ve done everything possible to ensure that the loss of life and property damage is at a minimum,” he said. This also helps protect the property’s reputation in the aftermath of an incident. When coordinating trainings, he warned of apathetic merchants. When merchants are engaged, they can aid the response by sheltering customers, while the mall management coordinates with the police. However, getting merchants that knowledge can be challenging. Cherry Creek now invokes language in the leases that demands merchant participation. Communication often is the biggest vulnerability. This can include communication within the management team, to the responding agencies, to the merchants and to the customers inside the mall. Managers should be on a first-name basis with the local public-safety chiefs responding to incidents and with Xcel Energy reps, he said. LeMasters suggests sharing building plans digitally with first-response agencies so officers can pull up the plans on their laptops in an emergency. Also, determine physical identifiers, such as a Macy’s or Starbucks, because these are helpful when guiding officers through the mall – cardinal directions tend to get confusing once inside. Additionally, strategically place blow horns throughout the mall to communicate efficiently with guests in an emergency. Reputational damage resulting from an incident at a property will be lasting, so you must mitigate that as much as possible through preemptive planning and training, he said. Wise words for all those managing and owning retail properties in today’s world.